Ann Coulter gets red-carded

By SARAH SMITH | 7/1/14 6:12 AM EDT
Updated: 7/2/14 11:31 AM EDT

There’s one person — and maybe the only person — who was not happy about the United States’ run in the World Cup: Ann Coulter.

Before the U.S. team fell to Belgium on Tuesday, the conservative columnist was getting kicked around — even by her fellow travelers on the right — for her anti-soccer tweets and a column she wrote headlined: “Any growing interest in soccer a sign of moral decay.”

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“If more ‘Americans’ are watching soccer today, it’s only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 immigration law,” Coulter wrote. “I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.”

Coulter doubled down on Wednesday after the U.S. loss to Belgium that knocked the Americans out of contention as she continued dissing her country’s team without even acknowledging the defeat.

“Doing the job Americans just won’t do: Immigrants fill up roster of ‘U.S.’ soccer team,” she tweeted, linking to an article that detailed the U.S. team’s connections to other countries. Another tweet cited a Washington Post story with the statistic that only 17 percent of Americans closely watched the World Cup. Coulter contended that of those 17 percent, “100% R unatheletic [sic] journalists.”

On Monday, Coulter was on Sean Hannity’s show to defend her earlier attacks on soccer.

“My critics have apparently tried to persuade me that soccer really is a macho game by throwing one week of hissy fits over my column,” Coulter said, speaking on Fox News from Paris.

While Coulter’s column unfavorably compared soccer to American football (“After a football game, ambulances carry off the wounded. After a soccer game, every player gets a ribbon and a juice box”), she thought a player’s biting of another backed up her views.

“More evidence soccer is for girls. Player from Uruguay caught BITING an opponent yesterday,” she tweeted last week. “Not punching. Not a cross-body block. BITING!”

Americans swept up by World Cup fever didn’t take kindly to her sentiments — including many of Coulter’s fellow conservatives and Fox News regulars.

“Right,” Kilmeade said. “I will outline what she said and try to find anything factual in it. That will be an interesting little exercise.”

“I’m told it’s a sign of moral decay,” Fox News host Shep Smith said of soccer after celebrating the U.S. advancing in the World Cup on Thursday after its match against Germany. “It’s not.”

Coulter also took the opportunity to mix in a tongue-in-cheek jab at the Internal Revenue Service, referencing the ongoing scandal over the disappearance of ex-IRS official Lois Lerner’s emails.

“Anti-soccer evidence pours in!” she tweeted. “Smug creep at IRS, John Koskinen, served as President of the U.S. Soccer Foundation from 2004-2008.”

Coulter also faced penalty kicks from the left, with Talking Points Memo writing about how she “trolled” soccer fans.

“It’s worth noting that aside from the Olympics, the World Cup is really the only occasion when an American audience gets a chance to cheer on a national — rather than a regional — sports team,” TPM author Catherine Thompson wrote. “But apparently that doesn’t jibe with Coulter’s vision of patriotism.”

Forbes, under the headline, “How Ann Coulter Lost Her Mind Over World Cup Soccer,” didn’t agree with her view — but gave her points for getting attention and being creative.

“Maybe Ann Coulter hasn’t lost her mind,” author Maury Brown mused at the end of his post. “Maybe Ann Coulter knows how to play us all up and take advantage of a storyline.”

Less surprising is the reaction of sports networks. Colin Cowherd on “The Herd” chalked up soccer as one more thing conservatives are slower to embrace. “New stuff — gay marriage, gun law change, immigration, technology — they’re a little more reticent to initially embrace it,” he said.